บท 18: Going School with my little sister
My little sister, Komachi, held a slice of toast slathered in jam in one hand as she enthusiastically pored over a fashion magazine. I was peeking at it fromthe side while drinking my morning black coffee. The articles in themagazine were filled with extremely irritating terms like safe sex and super-hot. I felt like I was getting stupider just reading it, my coffee dribbling outthe corners of my mouth as I went bleagh.
Come on, was this for real? IsJapan gonna be okay? It seemed to me that if you were to grade the intellectof this article on a bell curve, it would only come out to around the twenty-fifth percentile. What's more, my sister was nodding along as she read it. Just
what part of this is resonating with you?
I was told that this fashion magazine, Heaventeen, is the number one magazine among middle-school girls, and in fact, those who don't read itactually get bullied. Komachi went ooh appreciatively as she dropped crumbs on the page. Are you doing a solo Hansel and Gretel or what?
It was seven forty-five. "Hey. Look at the time." My sister was deep into
the magazine, so I poked her shoulder with my elbow and let her know it was about time to go.
Komachi raised her head with a gasp and checked the clock. "Ack! Crap!"
she yelled, immediately closing the magazine with a slap and standing up.
"Hey, hey, hey. Look at your mouth, look! There's stuff on it."
"Huh? No way. I'm jammed?"
"Is your mouth an automatic rifle? That word does not mean what you
think it means."
My sister swiped her mouth with a pajama sleeve while grousing, "Oh,
crap!" She was quite a handsome man, my sister.
"You know, Bro, sometimes I don't get what you're talking about."
"That's you. You mean you!"
Completely ignoring me, Komachi began panicking and flailing her way
into her school uniform. She threw off her pj's, baring smooth white skin, a white sports bra, and white panties.
Don't undress here. Not here.
Little sisters are mysterious creatures. No matter how cute they are, you don't really feel anything toward them. I can only regard her underwear as mere pieces of cloth. She was cute, but all I could think about her was I guess it's because she looks like me. This is how it is with real little sisters.
I gave Komachi a sidelong glance as she covered herself in a sloppily
arranged uniform. She flashed her panties below her knee-length skirt as she pulled on her socks and rolled them down twice to her ankles. I pulled the milk and sugar toward me.
Maybe she was trying to make her boobs grow this month or something,
because lately she'd been drinking a lot of milk. I didn't really give a damn.
But putting the phrase the milk my sister drank in meaningful-sounding italics
makes it sound kind of lewd and depraved. But who really cared? I didn't pull the sugar and milk toward me because it was the milk my sister drank. I just wanted to put it in my coffee.
I was a natural-born child of Chiba, the kind they say gets marinated in
Max coffee for their first bath and is suckled on the stuff instead of breast milk, so my coffee had to be sweet. Condensed milk would have been even better. But I could drink it black, too, okay?
"Life is bitter, so coffee at least should be sweet," I muttered to myself,
tossing back the heavily sugared drink. That line could have been a Max coffee slogan.
So good… The ad copy I just came up with, I mean. They should actually
use it.
"Bro! I'm ready!"
"Bro is still drinking his coffee." I replied, doing an impersonation that
did not remotely resemble something I'd seen in reruns of From the Northern Country.
But of course Komachi didn't notice. She just cheerfully sang, "I'm late!
I'm late! " It made me wonder if she actually wanted to be late or what.
This was something that happened a few months ago, but this one time,
my idiot of a sister slept in and was running late for school, so I ended up taking her on the back of my bike. Ever since then, I've gradually been taking her to school more and more often.
Nothing is less trustworthy than a woman's tears. Komachi in particular
had that special knack for crying that younger girls do, and she was a master at manipulating her older brother. She was vicious. Thanks to her, the idea that women = "people who use men like my little sister Komachi does" is imprinted on my brain. "If I can't trust women anymore, it'll be your fault. What'll I do when I'm old if I can't get married?"
"Then I'll take care of you somehow, okay?" She grinned. I'd always
thought of her as a child, but something about that look on her face was mature. I felt my heart skip a beat. "I'll work hard, save money, and put you in an old folks home or something."
Maybe less mature and more just your typical adult.
"You really are my little sister." I sighed. I gulped down the rest of my
coffee and stood. Komachi prodded my back:
"It's already this late because you're so slow! I'm gonna be late!"
"You brat…" If she weren't my sister, I definitely would have given her a
punt. Usually, it was the other way around, but in the Hikigaya household, things are different. My old man was abnormally fond of my sister, and his famous saying of I'll kill any man who comes near her, even her brother had gotten even me to back off. If I'd tried to kick her, I would have been beaten and thrown out of the house.
Well, in other words, I was of the lowest caste in my own home.
Nevermind about school.
I walked out the door and threw my leg over my bicycle, and Komachi
climbed on the back. She put her arms firmly around my waist and held on tight. "Let's go!"
"You're not even gonna say thanks?" Riding with two people on a bicycle
violated traffic laws, but as Komachi was basically an infant on the inside, I'd like to beg leniency on this one matter.
I lightly set us rolling, and Komachi nagged, "Don't get into an accident
this time. Because I'm riding with you today."
"You don't care if I get into an accident when I'm riding alone?"
"No, no, no. Bro, I'm just worried because sometimes you get this rotten-
fish look in your eyes and start zoning out. This is sisterly love, okay?" she placated, smushing her face into my back like a pest. Had it not been for that preceding line, it would've come off as cute, but at this point, it just felt manipulative.
Still, it wasn't my intention to cause my family needless worry. "Yeah,
I'll watch out."
"Especially when I'm riding with you. For serious."
"I'll ride over every bump on the road, you brat." Despite my remark, I
didn't want to hear her griping Ow! and You bumped my butt! and I'm damaged goods now! so I chose even ground. Those exclamations of hers made everyone in the neighborhood give me the stink-eye. In any case, it was a safe ride.
On the day of my entrance ceremony, I'd gotten into a traffic accident. I'd
been so excited about the ceremony and my new life, I'd left the house an hour early, but it was not to be my lucky day.
It was around seven AM, I think. A girl had been walking her dog in the
neighborhood, and it had gotten off its leash. Unfortunately, just then, a fancy-looking limousine drove up. Before I knew what I was doing, I raced over as fast as I could. In the end, I'd been carried away in an ambulance and hospitalized. That incident sealed my fate as a loner at my new school.
As a result of that accident, my brand-spanking-new bicycle got totaled,
and my golden left leg got fractured. Had I been a soccer player, it would've thrown a shadow over the entire future of soccer in Japan. It was a good thing
I didn't play soccer.
I was saved in the sense that my injury hadn't been that severe. There was
no saving me, though, from that fact that nobody came to see me in the hospital except my family. They visited me every three days. Hey, you should visit every day! After I was hospitalized, it had apparently become a family tradition for my parents to take my sister to go out to eat. With each visit, they regaled me with the details, saying things like We ate sushi the other day or We had barbecue. I considered snapping my sister's pinky.
"But you know, it's a good thing you got better quick. I'm sure it was
because you had a good cast. Casts really work well on liniments, huh?"
"You idiot, that's ligaments. Plus, I didn't injure my ligament. It was a
bone fracture!"
"You're being incomprehensible again, Bro."
"No! You're the one being incomprehensible! It's you!"
But nothing I said had an impact, and Komachi changed the subject as if
that was the reasonable thing to do. "S'yeah…"
"Huh? A reference to Issei Fuubi Sepia? That's way too old, come on."
"I was saying 'so, yeah,' Bro. You're bad at listening."
"You're bad at talking."
"So yeah, after your accident, the owner of that doggy came to our place
to say thanks."
"I didn't know that…"
"You were unconscious. So we got some sweets. They were yummy."
"Hey, I definitely didn't get any of that. Why'd you eat 'em all without
telling me?" I demanded, turning, but Komachi just smiled coyly, giggling like tee-hee . She was so infuriating.
"But you go to the same school, you know? Haven't you met? They said
they were gonna say thanks to you at school."
Without thinking, I screeched to a halt. Komachi yelled, "Ah!" and buried
her face in my back. "Why'd you stop so suddenly?!"
"Why didn't you tell me that earlier? Didn't you get a name?"
"Huh? I think it was 'the sweets person'?"
"What, are you buying treats for the office? And don't say it like you'd
say 'the ham man.' What was the actual name?"
"Hmm, I forgot. Oh! We're at school. I'm off!" No sooner were the words
out of her mouth than she hopped off my bike and dashed off toward the school gates.
"What a brat." I glared at her receding back.
Right before she disappeared into the school building, she spun around
and saluted me. "See you later! Thanks, Bro!" she said, waving her hand and smiling. Despite what a terrible sister she was, I felt like she was a little bit
cute just then. I waved back at her, and when she saw, she added, "Watch out
for cars!"
I sighed lightly in exasperation, turned my bicycle around, and headed to
school…the very school where the aforementioned dog owner was presumed to be.
I didn't have any particular desire for a meeting. I was just a little bit
curious. But if we hadn't met after attending the same school for over a year, the disinterest in a reunion was probably mutual. Well, that's how it goes. I'd saved someone's dog and gotten a fracture. Coming to my house to say thanks was probably enough.
Glancing at the basket on the front of my bike, I noticed a black school
bag inside that wasn't mine. "That idiot." I promptly turned around and started pedaling back to find Komachi running after me with tears in her eyes.
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